SWITZERLAND FOR THE OTTOMAN MARKET, 18TH/19TH CENTURY

This magnificent fan depicting an enamelled landscape on one side and mirror on the reverse was made in Switzerland for the Ottoman market. The finely painted enamel illustrates a harbour scene in the Ottoman Empire with a chain of mountains in the background. This view of Istanbul and ‘Bosporus landscapes’ became fashionable from 1810 and were in demand for several decades, adorning snuffboxes, hand mirrors and the gold cases of English, Swiss and French gold watches which were exported to Turkey. Our fan would have been made in Geneva, where the art of enamelling watch cases with Bosporus landscapes had flourished since the 17th century. Fans, such as ours were amongst the highly sophisticated accessory item used by fashionable women of Istanbul in the 19th century.
An example of an 18th century gold and gem-set fan decorated with feathers is in the Topkapi Palace Museum (inv. no. TSM. 2⁄3598). A Swiss diamond-studded gold and enamel oval snuff box made for the Turkish market with similar scenery was most recently sold at Sotheby’s, New York, 21 October 2020, lot 250.